Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy in their product purchasing behaviors. They use their smart phones to perform price comparisons. They select, at point of purchase, from several available options. For example, users may select from one of several different car washes available at a gasoline kiosk. And, when shopping for food or other products, consumers frequently ask the seller to try a free sample of the food or other product, such as perfume, being sold or displayed. There exists an opportunity and need to provide consumers with a greater range of options when making their purchasing decisions.
The Coca-Cola Company currently markets and sells non-alcoholic beverages through various outlets and dispensing and vending equipment. One such type of dispensing equipment is known as the Freestyle® dispensing machine, which permits customers to select from over one hundred different product and flavor combinations. Such dispensing machines are often placed in fast food restaurants, convenience stores, malls, and other venues that tend to attract consumers. An example of the apparatus, processes, methods, and systems potentially associated with the Freestyle® dispensing machine is disclosed in, inter alia, U.S. Pat. No. 8,744,618, to Peters, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 8,340,815, to Peters, et al., incorporated in their entirety by reference herein. While such patents as incorporated by reference herein may pertain to a particular commercial embodiment, such as the Coca-Cola Freestyle® vending machine, it will be readily appreciated that the teachings thereof, as incorporated by reference herein, may, with respect to the disclosure herein, be applied to other devices, for example, Pepsi Spire vending machines, traditional bottle/can vending machines, legacy fountain machines, and vending machines for dispensing food, candy, personal care and personal hygiene items, etc. The disclosure herein is in some aspects described in relation to the Freestyle vending machine for convenience only, it being understood that the present disclosure may be applied to any product dispenser.
Frequently, a consumer attempting to use a Freestyle® vending machine may be uncertain as to which of the over one hundred offerings to choose. This can lead to not only an unhappy consumer who may select an offering that he or she does not enjoy, but also may lead to other unhappy consumers waiting in line for such uncertain consumers to make a flavor selection.
The Coca-Cola Company currently provides a Freestyle® smart phone application that may be directed at addressing this problem by permitting consumers to pre-select on the application their favorite flavor offerings. The application permits consumers to consult a selection of over one hundred choices, mix their own virtual flavors, and start adding favorite brands and mixes to the application user's favorites list. The application provides for push notifications, locates Freestyle® machines in proximity to the application user, and offers a “Mobile App Sweepstakes.”
The Coca-Cola Company, and other entities that sell products, are continuously looking for new ways to market their products and demonstrate their attributes relative to competitive products and to encourage consumers to try both existing and new product offerings. Moreover, given the well-publicized global obesity epidemic, companies that sell calorie-containing products are working hard to offer lower calorie options and to demonstrate to the consuming public, as well as governmental agencies, their efforts in this regard.
Often, sellers of consumer products, in order to increase consumer awareness of their brands, offer—sometimes for a limited time—non-standard product variants or line extensions of such brands; one example, in the context of beverages, is Mountain Dew® “Kickstart,” currently being offered by PepsiCo, Inc., in Black Cherry and Limeade flavors. But often, consumers will be reluctant to commit to purchasing a six or 12-pack of such a line extension, or even to purchase a single serving thereof. For this reason, products—particularly new products or variants of existing products—are often marketed with promotions, including free product sampling at venues attracting numerous consumers, such as sporting events, concerts, etc. Other products, such as health, beauty, and personal care products marketed, for example, by Procter & Gamble, are sometimes sampled in drug stores, supermarkets, etc., or by sending small free samples to potential consumers in the mail.
But such promotions often require hiring numerous promotions staff, and/or employees to hand out free product samples, for example, and do not typically provide an option for consumers to purchase the sampled products immediately after sampling, when there exists the greatest opportunity to make a product sale, or to obtain and/or transmit and store post-sampling market research data.
In the context of consumer products, the period of time after which a consumer first notices or is presented with an offered product and makes a purchasing decision is sometimes referred to as “the first moment of truth,” also referred to as “FMOT,” a term generally recognized as having been coined by Procter and Gamble circa 2005. FMOT is generally recognized as the few seconds after a shopper first encounters a product on a store shelf. It is in these precious few seconds, P&G contends, that marketers have the best chance of converting a browser into a buyer by appealing to their senses, values and emotions.
The first moment of truth may vary, of course, by individual, by type of store, and/or type of product. For example, some consumers take longer than others to make a purchasing decision. Some products, such as high-priced items like automobiles, are only purchased after an extended period of time, perhaps an hour or more. As used herein, the term “first moment of truth” is intended to mean a generally recognized period of time, which may comprise a range of time, during which marketers of particular products understand that they have the best opportunity to convert a potential purchaser into a purchaser of such products by appealing to their senses, values, and/or emotions. In the context of consumer products, such as health and personal care, food, beverage, and similar items, particularly those being offered at grocery stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, convenience stores, “big-box” stores, etc., the first moment of truth is typically recognized as being about three-to-seven seconds.
Recent marketing theory suggests, however, that there may actually be four “moments of truth” in the marketing context, as illustrated by the following:
Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT: Potential purchaser recognizes the need for a product or service and may seek out additional information for it, for example by going online. This term, coined by Google, may include face-to-face meetings as well as online information acquisition. In a 2011 study, Google reported that different categories of shoppers are influenced by the Zero Moment of Truth or “ZMOT.” For example, 99% of those making travel purchases were found to be influenced by ZMOT, while only 61% of consumers of packaged grocery products and only 63% of consumers of packaged goods in health, beauty, and personal care were so influenced. Such data, in the context of consumer packaged goods, indicates a need to either provide additional opportunities or incentives to influence consumers at the ZMOT, and/or to influence consumers of such products to more quickly get from the ZMOT to the FMOT.
First Moment of Truth or FMOT: The potential purchaser makes a purchasing decision when presented with the product or service, whether online, on shelf, or otherwise. Traditionally, this moment occurred at the store shelf, and may now occur on a “virtual shelf,” i.e., online.
Second Moment of Truth or SMOT: The purchaser has purchased and used the product or service; ideally the experience supports any pre-purchase promises or promotional inducements. This is often the purchaser's first use of the product.
Third Moment of Truth or TMOT: The purchaser becomes a “follower” of the purchased product or service, sharing positive messaging about it with others via word of mouth, social media, etc. The purchaser may also rate the product or service and/or provide reviews therefor. This is often the point at which the brand's message reaches the purchaser in a memorable or reinforcing way, and was traditionally accomplished with television advertising.
One attempt to provide consumers information with respect to one or more of these moments of truth can be found, for example, in U.S. Patent Application No. 2013/0035787 to Canter. This published application provides a two-dimensional bar code at the vending machine for a consumer to link to an informational page on a website. This disclosure fails, however, to teach control of the vending machine from a smartphone or other communication device, and fails to provide any physical enticement through product sampling to a prospective purchaser of the products being supplied by the vending machine.
There exists a need to provide consumers with product sampling opportunities and product purchasing opportunities that are proximate in time and location to one another and ideally commensurate with the first moment of truth for a particular product. There exists a need to compress the four moments of truth into a shorter time span than occurs with traditional marketing methods of radio, television, and print advertising, and online shopping, and to take full advantage of the market research opportunities of product sampling by positioning the four moments of truth about a common purchasing experience and/or purchasing location. There exists a need to more readily incentivize consumers to sample product offerings and share their experiences, for example, with providers of such products and on social media, promptly following product sampling experiences.
Non-alcoholic beverage companies are struggling mightily to increase sales of, or at least slow the rate at which the consuming public is turning its back on, carbonated soft drinks and other beverages perceived as containing too much sugar, too much caffeine, too many calories, too little nutrition, or too few healthful ingredients such as juice or fiber. According to Beverage Digest, soft drink consumption fell 3% in the U.S. in 2013, the ninth year in a row of decline. One of the possible reasons for such decline in soft drink popularity is the perception that such products, particularly if sugar-sweetened, have contributed to the global obesity epidemic. And companies that sell sugar-sweetened products, such as The Coca-Cola Company, are taking notice.
One effort that non-alcoholic beverage companies have taken, in conjunction with the American Beverage Association, is a campaign to more prominently display calorie and calorie per serving information at point of sale. Information concerning such campaign, known as “Clear on Calories,” can be found at http://www.ameribev.org/files/332_FINAL%20ABA%20CLEAR%200N%20CALORIES-%20(Calorie%20Label%20Initiative%20and%20Style%20Guide).pdf.
While “Clear on Calories” makes strides on providing industry-voluntary standards for displaying important product information on labels, vending machines and the like, it does little to assist consumers faced with product selection decisions at fountain-type dispensing equipment points of sale, and does nothing to help a consumer know, in real time, how many calories or other ingredients of a product he or she is dispensing at any given time. Moreover, the companies' commitment to display calories “prominently” for fountain beverages only applies to “company-controlled” fountain equipment. And the commitment to display total calorie counts per container on selection buttons on vending machines or, when infeasible, in “close proximity” to the specific selection also only applies to company-controlled vending machines. Such commitments, moreover, totally ignore, and fail to inform the consuming public of, the risks associated with consuming too much added sugar, too many calories, or too many other potentially harmful ingredients such as caffeine.
One way companies such as The Coca-Cola Company are attempting to halt such sales declines and perceptions that their products lead to health issues is through the sale of new, lower calorie offerings, such as the recently unveiled “Coca-Cola Life,” a Coke beverage sweetened with a combination of sugar and stevia leaf extract that yields less calories than 100% sugar-sweetened versions of the brand. A 330 ml (11.16 ounce) can of Coca-Cola Life reportedly has 89 calories compared to 140 calories in a 12-ounce can of regular Coke. Coca-Cola Life, first piloted in Argentina and Chile in 2013, is sweetened from natural ingredients rather than artificial sweeteners, and will launch in the UK in the autumn of 2014, and in the U.S. as well. Coca-Cola Life is the first new Coca-Cola to be launched in the UK since the arrival of Coca-Cola Zero in 2006, a low-calorie version targeted at men.
The Coca-Cola Company says the new Coca-Cola Life drink would help meet its pledges made under the UK government's voluntary anti-obesity drive—the so-called “responsibility deal”—and would offer consumers a greater choice. In the UK, The Cola-Cola Company is a signatory to the government's controversial responsibility deal, which aims to improve public health, and has committed the company to reduce the average calories per liter in its range of sparkling drinks by 5% by the end of 2014.
But health campaigners argue that the company is misleading shoppers, as the new Coca-Cola Life product is still laden with sugar—more than four teaspoons of sugar per 330 ml can. The World Health Organization (“WHO”) recently dropped its sugar intake recommendations from 10 percent of one's daily calorie intake to 5 percent. For an adult of a normal body mass index (BMI), that works out to about 6 teaspoons—or 25 grams—of sugar per day. Thus, even just one 330 ml can of Coca-Cola Life, with its lower sugar content, would still represent about ⅔ of the WHO's daily sugar intake recommendations. One 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola, however, contains 39 grams of added sugar, 156% of the WHO's recommended daily maximum.
The problem with sugar-sweetened beverages is particularly acute when such beverages are dispensed from fountain equipment or other dispensers such as the Coca-Cola Freestyle® dispensing machine. One perhaps extreme example of this problem is with “supersized” portions, such as the “Coca-Cola 7-Eleven 64 Ounce Double Gulp,” which contains 186 grams of sugar (more than 7 times the WHO's recommended daily amount) and 744 calories, all from sugar:
Coca-Cola
7-Eleven 64 oz. Double Gulp
(55 oz. soda+9 oz. ice)
Sugars, total: 186 g
Calories, total: 744
Calories from sugar: 744
Perhaps in recognition of problems associated with runaway sugar intake, the FDA has proposed new Nutrition Facts labels that more prominently display caloric content, and not just the amount of sugar, but also the amount of added sugar in a product serving. An exemplary comparison of the current FDA Nutrition Facts label and that being proposed by the FDA is attached as FIGS. 9 and 10, respectively. The current label, represented in FIG. 9, requires declaration of “Sugars.” The proposed rule, represented in FIG. 10, would require declaration of “Added sugars” as well, indented under “Sugars,” to help consumers understand how much sugar is naturally occurring and how much has been added to the product. According to the FDA, this proposal takes into account new data and information, including recommendations from federal agencies and information from other expert groups, citizen petitions, and public comments. For example, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend reducing caloric intake from added sugars and solid fats because eating these can cause people to eat less of nutrient-rich foods and can also increase how many calories they take in overall. Added sugars provide no additional nutrient value, and are often referred to as “empty calories.” Expert groups such as the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization also recommend decreasing intake of added sugars. On average, according to the FDA, Americans get 16 percent of their total calories from added sugars. The major sources of added sugars in the diet (with the highest sources listed first) are soda, energy and sports drinks, grain-based desserts, sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, dairy-based desserts, and candy.
Even if government agencies or state and local governments succeed in banning large portions of sugar-sweetened products, or require signage or labels displaying the sugar, added sugar, and/or calorie content thereof, the machines that dispense such products do not currently enable one to know precisely how many calories or grams of sugar or other ingredient or product attribute of interest are being dispensed at any given time, such that the consumer may halt a dispensing operation, for example, once a predetermined quantity of calories or grams of sugar has been dispensed.
Another way that consumer products companies, such as beverage companies, are attempting to woo consumers to their products is by enabling them to customize their product selections. For example, PepsiCo recently announced a beverage dispenser known as “Pepsi Spire,” which purportedly allows customers to make over 1,000 different product selections based on mixing different flavors, different brands, etc. The Coca-Cola Company, through its Freestyle dispensing machine, recently announced a limited time offering in which consumers can use the Freestyle mobile app to customize up to three drink mixes and pour them at participating outlets using the Freestyle app. Such customers are sent a push notification, via the mobile Freestyle app, and are encouraged to log into the app using Facebook Connect, and then scan a Quick Response Code (QR code) on one of the participating Coca-Cola Freestyle dispensers to pour the custom mixes.
Currently, however, both the Pepsi Spire and the Coca-Cola Freestyle app only permit limited customization. For example, using the app a user as a first step may select from a palette of brands, for example, Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Dasani water, Barq's root beer, Fanta, Fanta Zero, Sprite, Sprite Zero, and so on. As a second step, the user may select from one or more flavorings for such brands, for example, Coca-Cola lime-flavored cola, and may then drag the selected brand to a “mix” button to create a unique mix. Currently, the user may make up to three such selections to customize the mix. Then, in a third step, the user may select the percentage of each of the selected mixes to pour, name the resulting mix, save it, and share it, for example, on Facebook.
As an example, a user may select Coke Vanilla, Coke Zero Orange, and Coke Zero Raspberry colas as the mix selected by dragging and dropping each brand to the mix icons currently available on the Freestyle mobile app. Then by using the “Go Mix!” button the user may vary the proportion of each of the three chosen brands within limited ranges. Currently, the user is limited, when three brands are selected, to a maximum of 50% of the total mix for any one brand, and a minimum of 25% for any one brand, with any combination between those limits adding up to 100% total. As one example, a custom mix could comprise 25% Coca-Cola Orange-flavored cola, 43% Coca-Cola Zero Vanilla-flavored cola, and 32% Coca-Cola Zero Raspberry-flavored cola. When two brands are selected to mix, one brand may be selected to a maximum of 75% and a minimum of 25%, and may be varied up to an equal 50%-50% blend. But the user making such flavor mixes is not informed if the mixes are based on a volume percent or a weight percent. Most significant, the user is not informed of the calories per serving, the amount of juice, if any, contained in the fruit-flavored brands, or the amount of sugar, caffeine, or other ingredients contained in either the individually selected brands or the total mix. In the case of Coca-Cola Freestyle, for example, only the Minute Maid Lemonade and Light versions disclose that such brands contain 0% juice.
Currently, however, FDA labeling laws do not require manufacturers of beverage products to disclose the contents of ingredients contained in their products being dispensed from dispensing equipment such as the Freestyle dispensing machine. But certain decisions, such as the one by the Supreme Court in POM Wonderful v. The Coca-Cola Company, 134 S. Ct. 2228 (2014), suggest that the FDA does not have exclusive jurisdiction over product labeling requirements. The Lanham Act, which protects competitors from misleading product advertising, may give rise to a cause of action against competitors' labeling and advertising even if in compliance with FDA regulations. And there is evidence that various governing bodies are contemplating new laws and regulations targeting manufacturers in an effort to promote greater awareness on behalf of the consuming public and greater responsibility among those advertising their food and beverage brands.
One highly publicized example of the war on soft drinks involves former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial ban on sugar-containing soft drinks in larger than 16-ounce cups at city food service establishments. That ban, adopted in September 2013, was overturned by a New York Supreme Court judge as “arbitrary and capricious.” But the city has appealed that ruling, and reportedly dozens of community groups and minority organizations have signed amicus briefs in support of the ban. Even though the appellate court in New York recently denied the city's appeal, and thus beverage companies have won the most recent battle, it is doubtful the war is over.
Recently, as another example of how state governments are responding to one perceived problem of sugar-sweetened calorie-containing beverages, California Senate Bill 1000 passed the state senate, but was not thereafter enacted. Yet the bill is illustrative of the concerns many have over the health implications of food and beverage products and the labeling thereof.
The California Senate bill cites data suggesting a nearly three-fold increase in obesity rates in California over the period from 1984 (8.9%) to 2012 (25%), and that low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the obesity crisis. The bill further cites “overwhelming evidence” of the link between obesity and the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soft drinks, energy drinks, sweet teas, and sports drinks. It states that a 20-ounce bottle of sugar-sweetened soda contains 17 teaspoons of sugar, while the American Heart Association recommends that Americans consume no more than 5-9 teaspoons of sugar per day, (which is comparable to the WHO's recommended 6 teaspoons per day). The California Senate bill cites troubling data concerning the ethnic disparity in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages among minority adolescents in California: 74% of African American adolescents drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage each day, compared to 73% of Latinos, 63% of Asians, and 56% of whites. The bill further cites the connection between consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and increased risk of type II diabetes, noting that diabetes complications include: heart disease, nerve damage, gum infections, kidney disease, hearing impairment, blindness, amputation of toes, feet, or legs, and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Had California Senate Bill 1000 been passed, the resulting legislation would have become known as the “Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Safety Warning Act.” This act would have required a warning label to be placed on many beverage product labels for sealed beverage containers and multipacks containing sugar-sweetened beverages; the warning would have read: